You are. You are many things, many wonderful things, many complex things, many challenging things, but you are not terrible.
The Terrible Twos. What a terrible thing to say. They're challenging, certainly. Exhausting, trying, testing and very temporary.
Honest moment here. It breaks my heart when people shame their children. "Who would do such a thing?!" you ask, indignantly. Lots of people, and few of them do it intentionally, I'm sure. In a time of great sweeping change, in a time where we're examining our thoughts and our actions harder than ever, and striving to change the injustices of our society (and we still have a long way to go), there are moments I feel we've forgotten about our own children.
Children are supposed to grow up. To change. To push boundaries. To question authority. They are supposed to experience big, scary emotions and freak out when they don't know what to do with them.
You guys, being human is a lot to deal with. You and I have been doing it for awhile, we're used to the ebb and flow, the rollercoaster that at times claims our physicality, emotionality and full brain power. We've dealt with most of this before. But what if all this was new? What if you were feeling sadness, happiness, frustration, anger, disappointment, injustice in all their iterations for the first time? What if the magnitude of your own capacity to emote took your by surprise (p.s. I hope it still does, at times)? What if you felt as though you couldn't quite explain the hurricane raging in your own head, body, threatening to burst out through your chest in a show of fury, tears and fists and kicking and screaming? You'd be a little unpredictable, too.
So, daily, we learn (this is for us, too, big people). We grow. We accept that some things are going to happen that are out of our control. That there are times we just have to deal. That there are others that we need a moment to be angry, to be sad, to be frustrated, to feel deeply the injustice of it all. One day at a time, one hour at a time, one moment, even.
I am not a perfect parent. Straight up, I'm pretty sure I suck sometimes. But we all suck sometimes, right? Whether we're 30, or 97, or... 2.
